


When You Try Your Best

by keep_me_alone



Series: Batfamily Ficlets [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Bat Family, Batfamily Feels, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Canon-Typical Violence, Crime Fighting, Dick Grayson is Robin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Young Dick, crying in the batmobile, probably idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:26:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_me_alone/pseuds/keep_me_alone
Summary: Robin still has a lot to learn before he can fight crime. A long, almost disastrous day results in an emotional outburst. Pretty self-indulgent  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯





	When You Try Your Best

They followed the hitmen to a parking lot, surrounded on every side by huge, abandoned buildings. Given the general aesthetic of villains in Gotham, Dick correctly assumed they were warehouses.

“Stay here,” Batman growled, leaping off the roof. Dick had no intention of following him down. There were at least five men down there, all armed and highly trained. So, he waited on the roof as patiently as he could. But even though it was the dead of night, Gotham’s summer heat bore down on him. Dick paced impatiently. He wondered how much time had passed. It was impossible to tell. And then he heard a shout; a deep, raspy yell. _Batman_ , he thought, panicked. For a split second, he considered that Batman had told him not to move. Dick tossed the thought aside and skipped off the roof. Batman _needed_ him. If he waited too long, he could lose another parent. Dick wasn’t prepared to let that happen again.

The fight was happening just inside one of the buildings. Massive doors meant to accommodate multiple semis were fully ascended, leaving one wall almost completely open. Crates and barrels of various sizes lay scattered around the entrance. It was, Robin thought, a highly defensible position. He didn’t understand how they’d gotten the jump on Bruce. He was the stealthiest man Dick knew. But it was pretty obvious from the constant gunfire and shouting that someone _had_ seen him. A bullet thumped into the wood near Dick’s head. He startled like a rabbit, and took off running to the next available cover. The time for action was here. Doing his best to dodge gunfire, he quickly realized that he had made a mistake. Batman clearly had had the situation well in hand. He was on a metal catwalk above the dozen or so people on the ground. He’d been picking them off with Batarangs and occasionally swooping down on one or two careless thugs. Not all of them had guns either, some were merely throwing at him whatever they could get their hands on. But now Dick was here.

He moved quickly, knowing he had to make the most of their surprise. After all, an eight-year-old had just walked in on them trying to murder a mythical figure at midnight. Dick launched himself into an armed man, planting both feet firmly against his chest. He kicked away hard, and backflipped to slam his boots against another attacker just behind him. Batman descended on the group below, swinging on a rope, his cape flared out behind him. Two guns clattered against the concrete floor. Their owners fled as Batman landed squarely on a third attacker, probably breaking several of her ribs. She didn’t get up again.

Dick thought he was doing pretty ok for himself. He’d just turned on a fourth attacker, disarming her handily, when the hair on the back of his neck began to prickle. Dick half turned, somehow feeling, _knowing,_ he was dead. Time moved strangely, somehow speeding up and simultaneously slowing. A shot was fired. Something slammed into him. Dick felt a painful grip on the back of his neck and Batman had thrown him out of the way _._ When he landed, Dick made contact with something decidedly not soft.  He lay there, stunned. By the time things had stopped spinning, Batman had incapacitated and tied up the remaining six attackers.

Batman towered over Robin who was still lying among the smashed crates.

“You _threw_ me,” he said, dazed.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded. Robin took stock of himself and shook his head.

“I think I’m ok,” he murmured. He would be a mass of scrapes and bruises the next day, but he was pretty sure nothing was broken or heavily bleeding. Batman grabbed Robin by the shoulder and roughly hauled him up.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

 

The Batmobile was silent. Batman hadn’t said a word since they’d left the warehouse. Dick had tried to apologize, tried to explain, but had been rebuffed at every attempt. He stared at his shoes, feeling utterly inadequate. Batman had a way of doing that to people. It wasn’t so noticeable in Bruce, but in Batman, it was omnipresent.

“That was stupid.” Batman said, finally breaking the mounting tension.

“I didn’t think-,” Dick started

“No.” Batman cut him off abruptly. “Be quiet. Excuses don’t bring corpses back to life. You almost died.”

“But I didn’t,” Dick protested, choked by some strange emotion.

“You were lucky. You won’t always be.” Dick’s face was growing red, his lower lip trembling. He was hurt and tired and all he’d wanted to do was help. He went back to studying the floor. Bruce still hadn’t taken his eyes off the road for as much as a second. “I’m temporarily suspending you, until I’m satisfied you can take orders.” The tears that had been pooling in Dick’s big blue eyes began to spill over, leaking out the bottom of his mask. He bit his lip hard. “You can’t just pick and choose when you obey. That will get you killed. _Are you listening to me, Dick?”_ The edge in his voice mad Dick curl even further into himself.

“Yes,” he whispered. Batman looked over sharply.                                                                       

“Aw, crap.” He made a noise in the back of his throat. Dick interpreted this as disgust. Disgust aimed at him. He had ruined everything. He was all beat up, Robin was gone, Bruce didn’t want him anymore, and he was just making things worse by crying about it. He was crying in earnest now, choked sobs that he couldn’t quite supress. The Batmobile was slowing, and Bruce pulled them off the road.              “Please don’t do that, Dick.” He could deal with killer clowns, invincible aliens, evil of every kind really, but a crying child was well outside the bounds of his experience. After all he’d _trained_ to fight crime.

“I’m s-s-orry,” Dick hiccoughed, but this only made him cry harder.

“You don’t need to-,” he was at a loss. Dick pulled his feet up onto the seat and buried his face in his knees. “Dick, I don’t-,” Bruce frantically grasped at sense. “It’s not _forever.”_ Dick turned his head to look at Bruce, who reached for his shoulder. Dick flinched, resumed crying and covered his face again.

“I’m sorry,” his small voice was almost entirely muffled. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know, kid.” Bruce peeled off his cowl, brushing his fingers through his hair. “But you have to learn the rules.”

“I thought you were hurt.” _Oh,_ Bruce thought, _oh._

“It’s my fault for letting you in the field before you were ready. It’s _my_ job to protect _you._ Not the other way around.” Bruce was appalled. “Those men were a surprise that I had to deal with. I didn’t mean for you to be in that situation.” Dick was shaking less now. He unfolded himself from his ball. “Dick, look at me.” Dick’s eyes were puffy and red and they broke Bruce’s heart. “You will be Robin again. After we get you some more training, ok?” Dick nodded, sniffling. Bruce ran a gloved hand through the kid’s hair. His touch revealed Dick’s neck and the dark bruises that were already starting to form. Bruce felt his stomach contract with guilt. He brushed the area with his thumb. It wasn’t as though he’d had a choice. If he hadn’t intervened, Dick would have been shot. Bruce himself nearly had been. His cape was torn where the bullet had ripped through it.

 “Let’s go home. It’s late. You’ve had a long day. Alfred can check you out, and then I want you to get some rest.”

“Can’t I just go to bed,” Dick asked almost sulkily, looking up at Bruce. Bruce let out a huff of laughter and ruffled his hair.

“Absolutely not. It’s part of the job.” Bruce smiled slightly and squeezed Dick’s shoulder before putting the Batmobile back in gear. He drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting between them. Dick put one shaky, tentative hand in Bruce’s. And when Bruce closed his fingers over Dick’s, his watery smile lit the space between them.


End file.
